D H Lawrence

Anthony Pelissier, 75, who began his career as a stage actor but won fame as a director of plays and films. He directed and wrote the screenplays of two widely shown films, "The History of Mr. Polly," based on a novel by H.G. Wells, and "The Rocking Horse Winner," based on a short story by D.H. Lawrence. Pelissier, who also directed and produced plays, was the son of Fay Compton, a leading actress, and of theater producer H.G. Pelissier.

Sir Harold Acton, a writer, art collector and contemporary of some of the century's leading creative and political figures, has died. He was 89. An heir to a British family with deep ties to Italian nobility, Acton died Sunday at his villa, La Pietra, outside Florence. He was the author of more than 25 books, including biographies such as "The Last Medici" in 1932, and accounts of his years as a university professor in China. He also was a renowned art collector and patron.

Stella Gibbons, a prolific writer who will probably be remembered only for "Cold Comfort Farm," her satiric tale of comic genius, died Tuesday at age 87. Miss Gibbons, who suffered from a heart condition, died at her home in north London. She wrote more than 30 novels and volumes of short stories and poems, but none rivaled her celebrated satire, which parodied an earthy, regional school of writing popular at the turn of the century.

I always save the Times Travel section to read at leisure, and to savor as I relive travels and plan trips. Jerry Hulse's Travel Tips are an invaluable source of information for the intrepid traveler. I was glad to see the recommendations for the English Literature Summer School in Tips, April 7. The course offered in "The Writer and the Environment," and I can recommend it as one of the most enjoyable summer experiences i've had. I took the course for two weeks last July while I lived with a wonderful English family, wxperiencing English family life in depth.

May I as a participant in one of the literary conferences discussed by Brenda Maddox in Endpapers ("The Word and The Man") add a few caveats? Maddox, having "braved" the Monaco conference on James Joyce and the Montpellier conference on D. H. Lawrence, treats them as "absurdities both," examples of "celebratory rituals." That is unfair to the scholars who participated. The talks I heard in Montpellier (and certainly the one I delivered) were entirely professional in topic and tone, not adulatory but analytic or biographic.

So you're tired of sickly sweet love poems and everything pink. If you feel something needs to be said about heartbreak, sadness and false hopes, "Bleeding Hearts: Love Poems for the Nervous & Highly Strung" (St. Martin's Press) may be for you. The book is a collection of tortured and neurotic poetry by famous poets, such as Maya Angelou, Charles Bukowski and D.H. Lawrence, as well as lesser-known victims of love.